Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Exercise and Running Update

This summer I had more time than I've had in the past. The weather is better than it has been. I wasn't injured. And yet with all that I worked out a lot less than I have in the past. I was working out 3-4 days a week with one of those days being a double workout. My goal is 6 but I have to work up to 6 after taking some time off. Once it hit fall, I started working out more. I would go through spurts of only working out 3 days in a week but mainly I would workout 5-6 days. I rarely have 2 rest days in a row too. Once January hit, I joined 24 hour fitness and was able to attend Body Pump classes and use better machines so that made it easier to actually workout.

I keep track of everything I do in a google doc (screen shot above). I started this type of file over 2 years ago when a friend and I had a competition of who would work out longer each week. At first I just had total time and total running mileage but in 2013, I added bike miles. Sometimes I accidentally go a few days without marking anything down and I have to think about what I did. Sometimes I can't remember exactly so I highlight it. Sometimes I remember what I did but not how long it took so I highlight that. I usually end up with 1 highlighted cell a month. I use this to create my monthly exercise goals post. I try to fill out those posts as the month goes on but usually go a week or more between updating it. I try to document my weekly training posts as the week goes on because if I wait then I forget the details that I want to write about. Then later if I forgot, and I go back to reread, I am sad and wish I knew what else went on in my head. I didn't used to count walking to stores but I realized that was exercise when I started getting sweaty so then I've been counting it ever since.

How do you keep track of working out? Do you have any suggestions for me?

I know I document my exercising in too many places. I also have a separate excel file with a Summary tab for all my runs with distance, time, who, where, when, type, and have it calculate a few things too. Then I have 1 tab for each run with my garmin data copied in. I also created one like that for biking but don't always update the tabs and just update the Summary. I need to come up with some way to update 1 thing and have it update other files too. I did create macros for my running file so I just copy and paste the garmin data and then run a macro to get the mile splits, best and worst split, average time, etc. I have to manually put in the date, time, weather but I realize I like that info so I put it in. Sometimes I add notes about what I wore based on weather because at the beginning of every season I seem confused as to what to wear to accommodate the weather so now I can just go back and check.